If you want to correct someone's bad habits, what's the fastest and most efficient way to go about it?
My answer: carve a trauma into them.
Even a lifelong jaywalker will start looking both ways every time after getting hit by a car once.
Because a powerful trauma rewires a life from the subconscious up.
In other words, if I wanted to stop the Commander from ever revealing he was a Regressor—
I had to make him believe that doing so could lead to the worst possible outcome.
*God, even I think this is complete garbage. What is wrong with my head?*
Of course, I was at least somewhat self-aware.
Deciding to carve a trauma into someone else without their consent.
It was undeniably inconsiderate, mean-spirited, and wrong.
But what choice did I have?
One misstep and the Commander might slip entirely out of my hands.
Just imagining it gave me a headache, made my breath go short, left my chest tight.
I still had a mountain of scenarios I wanted to play out with him!
I would never forgive him for running away from me.
We were bound together by Regression — we were fated to see this through to the end.
…Anyway. Back to the matter at hand.
So what kind of experience would deliver the greatest shock to him?
I thought it over carefully, and landed on a rather elegant solution.
*What if I invented a fictional character — someone who comes for you the moment they learn you're a Regressor?*
The concept: a complete lunatic who flies into a frenzy at the mere word "Regressor."
This was a world inside a trashy gacha game, after all.
There had to be shadowy organizations lurking around somewhere.
One character like this wouldn't be out of place at all, would it?
Working from that premise, I had the persona's personality fully fleshed out within a single day.
Next came the costume and appearance.
The clothes I quietly sourced and hand-stitched using my Adjutant's access privileges.
The voice I modulated by fiddling with my vocal cords through Sentiment.
Fifteen-centimeter heels to add considerable height, padded cloth at the shoulders and hips to reshape my silhouette.
For the signature detail — one eye — I induced a hemorrhage in the blood vessels to simulate a red iris.
I'd probably go blind in that eye by tomorrow, but that hardly mattered.
"Not bad. No one would ever recognize me."
Finally, I wrapped everything except my eyes and lips in strips of cloth — and the mysterious Black Bandaged Woman was complete.
A masterpiece from which no one could deduce "Leila," no matter which angle they looked from.
The next critical element was the scenario.
I needed to deliver a despair and helplessness so thorough that he'd believe no amount of Regression could solve it.
So, regrettably, the Rabbit Hole Squad was cast as the victims in this little production.
*Everyone who knows he's a Regressor gets taken down, and he himself gets cornered without being able to resist. Heh heh, yes. This is it. This is exactly it.*
The plan was simple.
First, pair Yubina — the hardest to subdue — in the same group as the Commander.
Then ambush and incapacitate the other three one by one.
Destroy the communications network to throw the entire city into chaos.
And finally, fire a bolt of lightning into the sky for everyone to see — boom!
Oh, and of course, "victims" didn't mean I actually intended to kill anyone.
Even knowing I could Regress, killing people still felt wrong.
I simply knocked them unconscious, then inserted needles to put them in a death-like state.
For the blood, I drained a few blood packs I'd quietly pilfered from the infirmary.
It was fortunate that, thanks to the previous Commander, no one ever noticed when supplies went missing.
"L-Leila… ma'am…?"
I had positioned the Rabbit Hole Squad at intervals along the route here.
As expected, Yubina arrived at the lodgings ahead of the Commander.
She froze the moment she took in the scene before her, her face going blank with shock.
Not a surprising reaction at all.
Because beneath me — in my disguise — lay a blood-soaked Leila, collapsed on the floor.
Naturally, this was a stand-in.
Morka happened to have a similar build to mine.
I'd simply dressed the unconscious girl in my clothes and fitted her with a wig.
But with all the lights extinguished, and the thick, nose-stinging smell of blood hanging in the air—
Yubina showed no sign of realizing it was a fake.
"Oh my, another cute one wandered in…? Perfect timing. I'm looking for a man called the Commander. Do you happen to know where he is?"
"You… what did you do to Leila…"
"Oh, this? No matter how much I roughed her up, she just wouldn't talk. So… she broke."
"You — you — YOU—!"
I nudged Morka — dressed in Leila's clothes — with the toe of my heel.
Yubina's face twisted into something savage, and she let out a furious scream.
Falling for such obvious provocation. She could really use some emotional discipline.
And it was anger on her face, not anguish.
Not quite the reaction I'd hoped for. A little disappointing.
"How dare you do that to Leila!"
"……"
I humored the enraged Yubina as she charged at me for a while.
Yubina might be A-rank in the future, but right now she was still a C-rank Valkyrie.
I knew better than anyone what a single rank's difference meant — Arishia had taught me that.
With nothing more than accelerated cognition, I could overwhelm her completely.
"Gck — urk… kgh!"
"You're so slow it's making me yawn. The one before you was fun — she shot electricity and everything. Did I finish her off too quickly?"
"Hff — hff—! AAAGH!"
Yubina was fighting with everything she had.
Did she care about me that much? That's a little touching, actually.
But her attacks never so much as grazed me.
Outside of her physical toughness, she wasn't particularly threatening.
Toying with a Yubina who'd lost her composure wasn't difficult.
*Still, fighting in heels like these is a bit of a pain. And I can't use my unique abilities without blowing my cover…*
I'm not sure how long I played with the increasingly battered Yubina.
Through the window I'd been watching, I finally spotted the Commander's silhouette.
Ah. He's here at last.
My chest swelled with anticipation. I kicked Yubina toward the entrance.
I'd knocked the others out before they even knew what was happening, but Yubina I'd roughed up simply because she was durable. I felt a little bad about that.
Still, I needed the performance to convey overwhelming, crushing force.
Around the time Yubina and the Commander had exchanged enough words—
I made my entrance as the enigmatic Bandaged Woman, heels clicking against the floor.
"My."
Just a little further now.
The anticipation of the climax was almost unbearable.
*
This happened because you revealed that you're a Regressor.
At those words from me, the Commander's face crumpled violently.
A murderous look I had never once received as Leila.
My shoulder flinched involuntarily as my heart lurched.
*So he can look at someone like that.*
Still, I could hold my ground.
I had roughed Yubina up a bit more than strictly necessary.
But in the end, I hadn't killed anyone.
And unless the Commander somehow knew the Bandaged Woman was Leila—
A reaction like that was only natural toward a masked stranger.
I squared my shoulders and met his gaze.
This face was disposable anyway. Hate it all you like.
I twisted the corner of my mouth into the most sinister smile I could manage.
"Don't worry. I won't kill you. You… you come back if you die, don't you? I absolutely cannot allow that…"
"……"
"Instead… you'll spend the rest of your life in a state worse than death. I'll gouge out your eyes, cut off your arms, cut off your legs, keep you saturated with drugs… and leave you somewhere no one will ever find you. For decades. Haaah… at least until I die — I will never, ever let you die…"
Of course, every word of it was a bluff.
I couldn't do any of that, and I had no intention of trying.
The Commander still had a great deal of playing left to do with me.
There was no way I could break him. Absolutely not.
But it was enough if he believed I could.
I wasn't a raving lunatic spouting nonsense —
I smiled with a madness that made it feel entirely, terrifyingly real.
"Tch…"
My bluff seemed to land as a genuine threat.
The Commander ground his teeth, looking somewhat deflated.
The most terrifying thing imaginable for a Regressor who could return from death.
He'd understood that what I described was exactly that.
But before long, he steadied himself again.
All the Valkyries were down, a killer stood before him —
And even in a situation like this, the Commander had no intention of giving up.
"Do you think you can cause this much chaos and walk away unscathed? Headquarters will send people — they will bring you to justice, no matter what!"
Well. That was a fair point.
I had made quite the spectacular scene, after all.
Given enough time, Central Headquarters would notice the anomaly.
They might even dispatch an A-rank Valkyrie — possibly S-rank.
Which would mean hope for a captured Commander.
And since I had no actual intention of harming him, it was hard to argue against.
So here, I pushed one step further and bluffed shamelessly.
"Heh, heh heh… heh heh heh… ahahaha!"
"What's… so funny?"
"So — did they come?"
"…What?"
"The Commander died. And they didn't come, did they? Those people."
He turned the words over in his mind for a moment, then his eyes went wide with shock.
The accident that had killed the previous Commander.
My words implied it had been staged.
*The truth of it is unknowable. But given everything he's witnessed so far… he'll find himself believing it without meaning to.*
The strength that had taken down the Rabbit Hole Squad and Leila without a scratch.
An inexplicable depth of intelligence with no discernible source.
And the sheer, brazen composure of someone who had done all this and felt nothing.
From the Commander's perspective, I must have looked more threatening than anything he'd ever faced.
At least, I hoped so.
Otherwise, all this trouble would have been for nothing.
One final nail, then.
Click, click — I stepped forward until ten paces separated us.
I took my pre-planned position and spread both arms wide.
"And besides — the Erosion Species are about to descend on this city. Who's going to care about one missing Commander in the middle of that?"
"Tch! So that was your doing—!"
"Aha, you already knew? So that's why you came back. Oh my… it's real… you really are a Regressor…! Dangerous. This is so dangerous…!"
The Commander's face darkened as the confusion gave way to something harder.
His shoulders shifted — a barely perceptible movement, like a decision being made.
It was the motion of someone reaching for a gun.
The gun I had given him.
*No, Commander. That's not what that's for right now.*
The moment had come.
I quietly channeled electricity through the tips of my toes.
It traveled along the wiring embedded in the floor—
BOOM!
The explosive I'd planted on the far side of the lodgings detonated.
The entire building shuddered. Debris scattered in every direction.
And above me — where I'd positioned myself near the unstable ceiling — fragments came crashing down in a cascade.
*Good. Now—*
I rolled backward at the last possible instant.
The fallen debris formed a solid wall between me and the Commander.
The moment everything went dark, I ripped off my heels.
Tap tap tap.
Barefoot, I sprinted down the corridor and reached the inner hallway.
There, Morka lay fast asleep, still dressed in my clothes.
"Hurry — hurry—!"
Riiip.
I tore off the outfit I was wearing with my bare hands.
Then yanked off the pre-unbuttoned clothes from Morka.
I scrambled into my uniform and stood before the mirror.
In my hand was a nail I'd kept in my pocket for exactly this moment.
"Okay… here goes—!"
Time was running out.
I dragged the sharp edge of the nail across various parts of my body.
Runner's High kept the worst of the pain at bay, but the sensation of flesh tearing open was deeply, viscerally unsettling.
Carefully avoiding anything vital, I made wounds that looked unmistakably severe.
Then I tore my skirt and threw myself out through the window.
"Hah — hah… halve the multiplier… ngh—!"
Thud.
I landed in a stumble and dialed Runner's High down.
Pain crashed over me like a wave — enough to make breathing difficult.
But gritting my teeth, I could still move.
I half-ran, half-limped to the lodgings entrance and threw myself through the door.
"Commander! Are you all right!"
"Leila!"
I'd calculated the blast to avoid catching them in it, but—
Fortunately, it seemed neither Yubina nor the Commander had been hit by the debris.
I let relief wash visibly over my face and collapsed to the floor.
The Commander came sprinting toward me.
He pulled me into his arms — hard — and the impact was so forceful that the pain stole my voice entirely.
"I thought you'd been—"
"Ngh — hk… J-just in case, I keep emergency medicine in the lodgings. Thanks to Yubina buying me time, I managed to…"
"Your eye—"
"Ah, this…"
I had the torn strip of my skirt pressed over one eye.
To hide the eye I'd reddened earlier — but the Commander, seeing my state, wore an expression of raw anguish.
He might have been replaying what the Bandaged Woman had said.
Wait — this guy, springing a surprise like this out of nowhere—!
I snapped back to my senses and hastily pushed him away.
"Commander. First, we need to get out of here. I bought us some time, but there's no way she went down from that. We have to move while we can—"
"What about Yubina?"
"…We can't help that right now. You can't afford to be captured here. She wants to take you alive."
"I heard."
I forced myself upright and pulled him by the hand.
A complication could arrive at any moment.
We needed somewhere no one could interfere.
"I know somewhere safe."
It was time to see this loop through to its end.